


Small Steps in the Dark

by pentapus, snarkydame



Category: Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Secondary Character POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentapus/pseuds/pentapus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkydame/pseuds/snarkydame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorn has reason to be wary of dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Steps in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Story by Snarkydame. Art by Pentapus.
> 
> Written for Pentapus, and her Treehouse Reversebang. Thank you for your patience! I hope this is enjoyable for you, because I certainly loved your artwork.

Thorn woke slowly -- from a dream of flying ships and looming storms that hid behind their clouds a buzzing, burning hive of monsters -- to Frost's green foot in his face and Bitter, soft and small in his groundling form, wrapped around his tail. 

Thorn had shifted in his sleep, ready for the thunder.

The nursery was quiet. The soft white light from the shells was dimmed, and he could see Bark through the doorway to the main room, gently straightening the piles of toys and blanket nests. 

The light had been more blue, he thought. Back in Sky Copper, when he was as small as Bitter, and a dark green Arbora sang soft songs in the nursery.

He couldn't remember her name. He wished he did.

For a moment, his nest felt cold, even with Frost sprawled snoring at his side and Bitter's arms around him. Thorn shivered. 

Yesterday, he told himself, Moon had returned. He'd come back and Thorn had sat in his lap, and he'd felt safe, and happy. Yesterday, Moon had returned.

But tonight that seemed less certain.

He might have dreamed it, he thought. He could have, like he still, sometimes, dreamed of the dark green Arbora and her songs.

Slowly, he eased his way out of the pile of his clutchmates. Frost snuffled in her sleep, and Bitter frowned, searching with his small groundling hands until he latched onto Frost's ankle. Thorn carefully spread blankets across them both.

He shifted into groundling form himself, to keep his claws from tapping on the floor. It was warm and smooth under his bare feet – living wood, dark and polished under the passage of years and years of strange fledglings that Thorn would never know. He'd never even see them echoed in his own reflection in the bathing pools – he'd never see anyone, but for Frost and Bitter, that shared his bloodline. That knew what the light in the old court had looked like.

He'd never, the thought came, as he peered around the doorway and watched Bark settle into her own nest in the nursery, meet anyone who knew what songs the dark green Arbora might have been singing in his memory. No one would be able to tell him how the stories she'd been telling them were supposed to end.

They ended now smothered in falling earth and stone, silent and cold and half-forgotten already.

Thorn hugged his arms around himself. He felt sort of . . . insubstantial. He waited as Bark yawned. If she saw him, she'd put him back to bed, and tuck him in. Frost and Bitter would wake enough to murmur and surround him, and he might go back to sleep, and then he might dream. 

And he might dream of thunder, and rain, and of a warm, dry place to sleep. 

But if instead he dreamed, again, of being thrown into a small dark hole by monsters that smelled of death and pain, he might not afterwards dream of rescue. Because now he thought, if Moon's return had been a dream, then maybe all of this was too, and he was asleep somewhere far less safe.

It seemed, to him, in the dark after his dreams, a very clear risk.

So he waited, until Bark's eyes closed, and her breathing evened out, and then he left the nursery. 

Quietly, quietly, he made his way down the corridors. He could hear the Arbora all around him, but their shuffling and their murmurs echoed oddly in his ears. They were too few to fill this space – this enormous tree was meant for a much larger family. To Thorn, tonight, it felt all but empty.

The corridors kept a subtle curve – as he walked, the nursery was hidden behind him. Thorn squared his shoulders, and kept himself from shifting with some difficulty. Quiet, he told himself. Stay quiet, and small. Listen, and look. If this was a dream, he would find out.

If this was a dream, he wanted to know.

Thorn couldn't hear the Arbora now. The corridor here was carved richly with the forms of consorts and queens, in flight and embracing, lounging by pools. He reached out to touch one such carving as he passed – a consort, alone and contemplative, though a young queen watched over him from behind his back. It reminded Thorn of Moon. The wood was warm beneath his fingers.

Most of the doorways in this section were dark. The bowers, mostly empty. But there was a spill of light from one, that Thorn stopped short of.

Maybe, if this was a dream, he could keep dreaming.

But if this was a dream, he'd have to protect Bitter, and Frost too, for all she'd say that was her job. He would have to be ready. He worried his lip with his teeth – he was small, still. It would be difficult.

But Moon, if Moon was here, and real, he would do it.

Thorn braced himself, and leaned into the light of the doorway.

Jade stood there, her blue tail lashing slowly. And beyond her, brow furrowed, was Moon. 

He certainly looked real, Thorn thought, barely breathing. He was scowling, holding so tightly to the paper in his hands that he seemed on the verge of tearing it.

“You don't . . .” Jade sounded hesitant. “I could read it for you? If you like.”

“I've got it,” Moon snapped. If he hadn't been in groundling form, Thorn thought, his spines would have been flaring.

“It's not something to be embarrassed about.” Jade's voice was muffled behind her hand. “I mean . . .”

“I've _got_ it.”

“It's just that if I'd _thought_ about it, I would have suspected. I could have helped you.” 

Moon shrugged his shoulders as though to settle scales that weren't there. “I'm not . . . I know you would. I just . . .”

“You don't have to keep everything secret. I won't . . . I _won't_ turn you away.”

Moon closed his eyes, and Thorn thought he sighed. He turned to Jade then, letting the paper fall to his side. “I know. I know that. I'm working on believing it.”

Jade reached for him then, and Moon melted against her, his face buried in her shoulder. 

“Take your time,” Jade said, her voice tight, her eyes fiercely fond. “I'll be sure to keep giving you proof.”

Thorn blinked. They certainly sounded real. He could pick out their familiar scent, edged with irritation and exhaustion though it was. He had heard the crackle of the paper in Moon's fist, the swish of Jade's tail across the floor. And there . . .

. . . in a basket, in the back of the bower, he thought he saw a twist of worn, dark cloth, and a tattered palm leaf wing. The doll he'd made for Moon – he'd kept it.

Thorn leaned out of the light, against the wall, and put his hands over his mouth to muffle the shuddering sigh. He'd made that. For Moon. 

He remembered the fell of the cloth, remembered how he'd broken the first bit of string he'd used, and how Bark had given him a better one. And if that was real, than Moon was real, and Jade was real, and this tree was real and so were all the others. 

He hadn't dreamed it. Frost and Bitter were sleeping safely in a warm bower, and he hadn't dreamed that either.

Thorn turned back. The gently curving corridor was just as quiet, but it didn't feel so empty, and it didn't feel so dark. And when he could hear the sleepy Arbora, they sounded much more like home.

In the nursery, Thorn made his way back past Bark, still thinking hard, and worked his way back under the blankets between his clutchmates. 

Frost smacked his ear with an elbow as she rolled against his back, and Bitter drooled against his arm.

Perhaps, Thorn thought, letting their warmth chase away the bulk of that disconnected feeling, he should make sure to ask for extra lessons when Moon was in the teacher's hall, and make sure to sit where Moon could get a good view over his shoulder. 

Then Moon could read whatever was on that paper, and maybe then he wouldn't have so much trouble believing he belonged here. 

Thorn knew how hard that was. They could work on it together.

_fin_


End file.
